There ARE regulations for sure. But they exist to protect the population at large. For example, food safety laws were not created out of government hostility but rather because food was unsafe. Read (or read about) The Jungle by Upton Sinclair if you want to get creeped out about the food industry in the 1930s before regulations

Are you suggesting that government use of power is always benevolent?

Consider the enormous difficulty and expense people in Palisades have getting permits to rebuild.

Yes, I read "The Jungle". It's a work of fiction, not a documentary. So is "The Grapes of Wrath".